Breaking

Pilot Qualifications Raised by U.S. FAA to Improve Safety

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Airline pilots will need to have
more experience and pass more rigorous tests under the most
significant increase in commercial flight-crew standards in
decades, the U.S. government announced today.

The biggest changes will come for co-pilots, who will have
to have at least 1,500 hours of flight time to be hired, up from
the current minimum requirement of 250 hours, according to the
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

The regulation, required by Congress in 2010, would grant
some exceptions to the 1,500-hour standard. A military pilot
would need 750 hours of total time and someone holding a
bachelor’s degree with an aviation major could qualify with
1,250 hours of flight time.

“We owe it to the traveling public to have only the most
qualified and best trained pilots,” Transportation Secretary
Anthony Foxx said in a statement.

The FAA projected a $6.4 billion cost, almost entirely
because of the 1,500-hour requirement. The agency estimated $2.3
billion in savings because of the exceptions, such as the 750-hour standard for military pilots.

Congress passed the law requiring the regulation in
response to the Feb. 12, 2009, crash of a regional turboprop
plane operated by Pinnacle Airlines Corp.’s former Colgan unit
that was blamed on pilot errors.

The accident, near Buffalo, New York, killed all 49 people
aboard and one man on the ground. It was the last fatal airline
accident in the U.S. before the July 6 Asiana Airlines Inc.
crash in San Francisco.

Colgan Families

Under current rules, a co-pilot may fly in an airline
cockpit after reaching 18 years of age and accumulating 250
hours in the air, or less with aviation academic training.

Captains, who have the final word in the cockpit, must be
at least 23 years old, have 1,500 hours flight time and pass a
flying knowledge test designed for airline operations known as
the Airline Transport Pilot license, or ATP.

The FAA last year proposed setting minimum hour
requirements of 750 hours for pilots trained in the military and
1,000 hours for those receiving an aviation degree from an
approved four-year university.

That formula was supported by the Families of Continental
Flight 3407, which represents relatives of the Colgan victims,
and the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations, a Washington-based trade group representing independent pilot unions at
airlines including United Parcel Service Inc. and Southwest
Airlines Co. Colgan was flying under contract for Continental
Airlines Inc.

Airlines for America and the Regional Airline Association,
Washington-based trade groups for airlines, and the Air Line
Pilots Association union, the largest pilot union in North
America, supported allowing pilots to work with as little as 500
hours experience with academic or military training.

They said flight time by itself was a poor measure of a
pilot’s skills, according to an advisory report to the FAA.